Session #18

Date: Aug 2, 2018

Cummulative flights to date: 27

Site: Kiwanda

Conditions: 7:40PM launch, 8-10 NW

Harness configuration: bare glider with new step fabricated from 1” PVC pipe that pivots on the lower spar so I can push it down into position after I pick the glider up and hook my shoulder straps to the hang tubes. It provides a step approximately 12” below the lower spar that I can step onto that makes getting the opposite foot up over the leading edge spar really easy.

Assistance: none

Launch: solid, step into step and easily swung opposite leg up

The flights: 1

Video/Photos: none

Landing: OK, still too fast and running it on, nothing touched the ground.

Conditions were essentially perfect although when I got as far up to the top as I felt was prudent given the direction was pointing me right to the north end of the cape rocks which I’ve noticed before. Even when the breeze on the beach is N NW. This was a late evening flight because of the tide but turned out really nice since I had the place to myself. Was able to carry the glider facing up the hill until I got up the first pitch. Enough of a breeze there to have to turn around and back up the rest of the way.

Had to release both rudders after launch. Seems to be normal for me to deploy them unintentionally when launching and then forget I’m holding them deployed. Kept good airspeed, made my right turn after using the step to get onto the LE. It was very easy to do even with me being hot and sweaty carrying the glider up and also wearing jeans. Control of the glider, once up in the cage, is extremely easy and stable compared to hanging from the cage by my arms. Operation of the twist grips becomes much easier. Dropping out of the cage prior to landing will take more practice to keep the pitch stable since you are moving your body weight back in the cage a lot which then takes pressure forward on the twist grips to keep from pitching up too much as you flare.

Take aways today are;

The new step I added made mounting the glider very easy. I feel very confident in going inland and flying a higher altitude launch. Controlling the glider once up in the cage has always been very solid and easy. Dropping out of the cage and maintaining pitch control for the flare will be something I’ll need to practice.

I really think I’ve learned enough to safely go to an inland site even though I will need to add the hammock, chute and harness. None of this presented a problem when I launched from Dog Mtn in 2017 so I think I can now progress to high altitude launches as long as I really pick mellow and steady conditions….evenings and mornings.

Really need to tape yarns to the fairing covering on both root strut fairing trailing edges.

Need to find a “hookless” carabiner for my shoulder strap carrier or modify the ones I’m using.

I timed my set-up to right about 30 minutes and then 15 minutes to climb, rest, launch, land and walk the glider back to the car.

Session #17

Site: Kiwanda

Conditions: started out 10 then 12-14 then last was 20+

Harness configuration: bare glider

Assistance: none

Launch: not comfortable with directional control so no attempt to swing up.

Number of flights: 3

Landing: OK, not great, nothing touched the ground.

First flight was from the top of the first bench in what I recall was about 10mph. I did a poor job of controlling direction and basically swung my legs to nudge right and left. Not sure if I’m doing this because the rudder sleeves are hard to access when hanging vs when up in the cage. Kept up my airspeed and had a reasonable landing but needed to run it on a bit. The second flight I went a bit further up toward the top but not past the summit bench. Wind was about the same and my flight was slightly better but still not even thinking about kicking up. Just not comfortable yet with directional control or airspeed. I believe it was 11:15 when I finished my second flight which was captured by someone watching. The last flight the wind had picked up for sure and I was kiting up the hill at least partially. I went on up past the summit bench to where I had been launching from last year and it had to be blowing 18-22. There was a fair west component so the launch was mainly an issue of picking a point where I felt I had directional stability. It took me a while. With that much wind I don’t get to run really at all. Must have been tense on directional control because I soon found that I couldn’t get the glider to turn right. I finally looked out at the right rudder to confirm it was deploying and it was. I immediately concluded I had unintentionally twisted the left rudder and was holding it as I tried to go right. When I released it the glider responded right away since I also was having to work at keeping my airspeed up during this turning attempt. It came around quickly and I had to correct to keep from over turning. Came in hot and a bit hard on my feet but no bruised heels.

Take aways today are;

1. More than 5-8 mph smooth, steady air is too much for me to work on kicking up. I am totally overwhelmed just maintaining directional and pitch control.

2. The times I have managed to get into the cage were very light (less than 5, ref. Last year) and then a guess of 12mph for session #13 which was the first time I tried bare glider config.

3. Footage shot from tourist shows me attempting to control direction by swinging my legs all over the place. Really need to get back my confidence and muscle memory of depending on the rudders.

Session #16

Date: June 17, 2018

Cummulative flights to date: 22

Site: Kiwanda

Conditions: WNW but switchy around 5mph when I started

Harness configuration: bare glider

Assistance: none

Launch: wind at 12-16, easy but less confident about directional control

Flights: 1 - really tired after only one trip up

Landing: easy

Photos/Video: none

The last flight I made was 1 year ago to the day.  I did not attempt to kick up, just flew it down hanging by my arms as usual for bare glider config.

Take aways:

1. I need to always assume the glider can blow away and find a way to tie it down so that it can never happen.

2. Picking the glider up off the ground in any wind at all is nearly impossible for me. This is due to the requirement that you must tip the glider onto it's nose by lifting the trailing edge and then lift it from forward of the CG point on the hang tubes up onto your thighs. This is the only way it will balance.   It is at this point I hook my shoulder strap carabiners to the glider hang tubes by two webbing loops so that I now have the glider resting from my shoulder straps.  When slope launching, I need to be able to pick up the glider in a sheltered location, carry the glider to the launch site and then launch without setting the glider down.  

Session #15

June 17, 2017

site: Cape Kiwanda, Oregon coast

One day in between south flow rains. Less than 5mph mostly west. Shirtsleeve weather with sun out by mid-morning. Joanna went on up with the GoPro. The very gentle breeze while we were there made it possible for me to climb up without a need to turn the glider around and climb facing west which I have to do when the wind is more than 5. I made one climb up and flew from the top hanging from the cage. Did not attempt to get feet up. Pitch felt a little touchy as could be expected but I was able to manage it. Landing was in almost no wind and I came in hot and ran it on. Bruised my feet. Next flight I successfully kicked up. Launching in nearly no wind was not giving me much margin and because of the west direction I had to begin a turn to line up with the beach about the same time I wanted to be kicking up into the cage. Joanna got my first flight but missed my second where I kicked up. I dropped both feet at the same time and had to shift forward to avoid a stall too high off the beach. Still no wind and ran it on but could not flare and ended up dropping the nose into the sand. The 3^rd flight Joanna got and I kicked up but you cannot see it on the footage because the GoPro lense is just too wide. The 4^th flight the flow dropped off to almost nothing between occasional cycles and you can see on the footage that I was close to a stall on takeoff and not running hard or far enough to really get flying solidly. Because it’s so steep where I was launching I got away with it but with no margin for error. You could see on the footage that I made a couple of attempts to get my feet up before realizing I need to turn right to get on a track for the beach. I had unintentionally slowed the glider down in my attempts to get up and it spun right immediately as I applied right rudder. You can see in the footage how the glider basically “falls out of the sky” when you stall in a turn (otherwise known as a spin). I was very lucky and only bruised my left armpit and bicep, bonked my right side rib cage and bruised my right hand which also sustained a couple of minor cuts. Also bruised or cracked the top of my right foot. It’s 9PM now and I’m still pretty sore. The glider will need to go back into the shop. The right wing that I had re-built looked fairly good given the severity of the crash. The only damage I could really see was the LE tip bracket on the lower wing was really bent and will need to be replaced. Also, the rudder cable tore a rip about 5 inches long toward the root. The left wing was in worse shape. I will need to replace the hang tube which I bent and also several of the brackets. I won’t know about the spars until I finish getting the right wing back to flying shape.

Lessons: Same thing that happened at Dog Mtn. Trying to get into the cage, then having to make a roll correction while trying to maintain adequate airspeed. Too many things at my skill level at this stage. I believe that I need more wind on take off so I don’t have to worry about launching and then I should not attempt to get my feet up until I’ve lined up on my final flight path to land. I think I better do this until I get very good at it before progressing.

Setting up the black tarp on top so that I could set the glider down made multiple flights much more doable. I could rest once I made the climb.

This is my first launch where I flew from a hanging position

The GoPro used is clearly unable to allow any more than the first couple seconds of the flight before the glider is out of sight.  I would be able to learn a lot more if I just attach it to an outboard strut.

This was my 3rd launch where I did get both feet into the cage right about where you can't really see me do it.  I managed it without much of any perturbation in pitch which is the goal.  Still, the GoPro is just not the camera to be doing this kind of filming with.  The lense is just way too wide angled.

This is the "grand finale" where I get a poor launch, attempt to swing first one leg up and fail followed by a classic spin with no attempt to recover (not sure I could have)

Session #14

June 5, 2016

Site: Dog Mtn

Time: approx noon

Conditions: SW breeze 5-12 with cycles where you could hear it in the trees at launch, 80-85F very warm day. Direction and velocity were cycling.

Cummulative flights to date: 20

Assistance at launch: left wing tip

Number of flights: 1 crash immediately after launch

Dave and Dianna Auman where at launch with a friend. Dianna and their friend launched and were having OK flights from what Dave could see. I decided to have Dave assist me while standing on the ramp to get a feel for the conditions to make a decision on whether to attempt a launch. I had Dave on my left wing tip. From what I recall, he was actively assisting me 80% of the time I stood on launch.  This should have been a clear indicator that I should reconsider attempting a launch.  The breeze did not feel consistent and even the best cycles did not come straight in. This also should have been all I needed to scrap the attempt and wait to see what the day would bring. I launched anyway. The launch on that short ramp had me intimidated but my run and take off felt OK with the wings reasonably level. Immediately after launching I got my right foot up and over the leading edge but I was unable to put enough pressure forward with my hands to keep the nose from pitching up significantly. About the same time I felt I was turning left and input right rudder to correct. I applied too much rudder and found myself in a sharp right turn at a high bank angle headed for the treeline on the right side of launch. With no room left I held things steady and slowed the ship down with the slim possibility that I would clear the tree line. I was 6-8ft short and impacted the only dead snag in the tree line. The glider hung up where it hit. I was easily able to disconnect from the sling attaching me to the glider and get out of the tree. The glider sustained significant damage. Very likely that I will need to rebuild the entire left wing panels which will take several months of shop time. My injuries were minor abrasion to my right elbow and major bruising to my rib cage on the left side.

What did I learn:

Cleaning sand out of the glider is a lot easier than a re-build. 20 consecutive successful launches and landings off a 70-80ft high dune might have been sufficient training to launch and land at this site if all of those flights had been in the bare glider or hammock sling seat configuration where I had mastered kicking up into the cage. This was a ramp launch, cycling breeze, slightly crosswind and lots more vertical to the LZ (read: intimidation factor)...my focus was getting up into the cage as quickly as possible having only done this once on the last session I had at the beach which was clearly insufficient.

What to do next:

I need to practice more at Kiwanda until kicking up into the cage becomes not only automatic but with as little perturbation in pitch as possible. Rudder control must also be much more automatic (part of what I experienced was over control into that right turn). I believe at least 20 more flights off the dune needs to happen where I kick up into the cage with very little pitch perturbation. This may take even more than 20 flights. The coastal dune site I have been using requires a right turn fairly soon after launch to avoid landing in the surf so my experience to date actually has given me some practice in making small roll changes without over control. The key here is that it was not enough training in the final flying configuration I will be flying the Easy Riser in. Recall from my previous training flight that it was the first time I kicked up both feet onto the leading edge and flew down in the cage. I had convinced myself that it was so easy to do I did not need to repeat it before going to the next step and launch from the Dog Mtn ramp. Needless to say I was wrong on that decision. Two things happening simultaneously I believe was key to my incident at Dog. Failing to execute the swing up into the cage without maintaining constant angle of attack and at the same time needing to make a roll correction to maintain a straight off flight path. Clearly I was unable to do both. Another part of this I did not get to explore was the landing which requires the pilot to drop both feet off the leading edge while holding pitch steady. I noticed this on the last flight off the dune. I dismissed it as something minor but feel it could cause a whip stall if one got in a hurry to drop while still well above the ground on approach. This glider is very easy to fly but will quickly spin in if stalled in a turn. The last flight I had at the beach I found it took a mental effort to let my feet come down out of the cage since it is such a secure and comfortable position. So I think dropping my feet early is not going to be a problem but I'd rather make darn sure through sufficient practice at the beach.

Unfortunately the impact very likely tweeked the entire frame so I will need to do a complete re-build involving at the very least, fabrication of the lower left leading edge spar which was completely broken on impact and then, of course re-covering and re-rigging. I am also guessing the internal root diagonal brace rib was also destroyed so I will need to create a form to reproduce that curved rib with new tubing. Because of the difficulty in covering I experienced with the first re-build, I plan to replace any of the frame tubing I need to in order to achieve a completely straight and true frame. I will likely document this in a continuation of my intitial re-build blog (easyriser1.blogspot.com).

Re: Pilot safety
I did not break ribs but I did bruise or crack a couple that took at least two months to heal.  I plan to buy a rib cage protector vest available for go cart racers next.  The pilot position totally exposes the rib cage to those 2 inch hang tubes so that any lateral force on impact is going to do some damage to your rib cage.  With this configuration I would judge this to be almost as important as wearing a helmet.

Session #13

Date: June 1, 2016

Cummulative flights to date: 19

Site: Kiwanda

Conditions: Shirt sleeve weather, gentle breeze, did not need to secure wing as I set up.

Harness configuration: bare glider

Assistance: none

Launch: steep sloping dune in approximately 12mph somewhat steady breeze

The flight: Walked tail to the breeze on the way over to the dune without too much difficulty. Forgot the bare root diagonals so had to use the faired ones making it difficult to keep from bumping the fairings with my helmet otherwise it presented no problem. I think I can reasonably fly with these in place as long as I'm not needing to carry the glider 300 yds and then climb a steep dune backwards.

I am guessing I had about a 12mph breeze at the top of the dune where I launched. I was launching for the first time with nothing but the shoulder harness to carry the glider. I kicked up right away with no trouble other than a fairly significant pitch up which I was able to correct quickly by moving both feet well over the leading edge. I felt I was flying plenty fast but also felt like I was getting a very good glide out of the path I chose. I will have to get some experience doing this to really develop some finess and get it so I minimize the pitch changes. All in all the glider seems very easy to control on launch, during launch, in flight and landing. I started to carry back to my tarp which I flew way past and then thought “mission accomplished”, no need to go do this again here so I just carried on out to my car and packed up.

Landing: I ended up staying in the feet up position until I was about 10ft off the ground and as soon as I dropped down the nose came up rather quickly and I think I counteracted it with pressure forward using my arms or just moving a bit forward in the cage. Ran it on a few steps to a stop.

Conclusions: After feeling like this had been so easy to do, I neglected to analyze my experience today more carefully. I am really wanting to be ready to go inland and launch off something that will give me some time in the air to really fly the glider. At this point I make the critical error of deciding that I can safely launch the glider from Dog Mtn which is a ramp launch with a huge, wide open LZ and about 1500ft vertical. It is about 3 hours north of where I live. I had already made one trip up there with the intent to fly and aborted the idea after driving all the way up there, setting up the glider at launch and then started thinking things through. I decided it was too big of a risk since my only experience at that point had been flying with the leg harness arrangement which I learned from session #12 that my arms wouldn't last all the way down to the LZ. I had rigged up the hammock harness arrangement and realized I was about to take a risk of doing two things I had not yet practiced; 1) fly using the hammock and 2) launch off a ramp. The conditions were also unstable so I expected to get some turbulence which was also something I had not yet experienced. I packed up and went home which was a good decision.

Session #12

Session #12

Date: Monday Feb 15, 2016

Cummulative flights to date: 18

Number of flights: 1

Site: Peterson's Butte lower launch, approximately 400 ft vertical to the LZ.

Conditions: Warm low 60's , partial overcast with scattered cums, SW at 15

Configuration: Using the leg harness attached to upper trailing edge (does not allow me to kick up into the cage, body position is vertical)

Assistance: Had a person on each wing tip to maneuver the glider to my launch point mainly to keep from hitting cars I had to maneuver around getting over to launch. I had little trouble maintaining control without assistance once in the clear.

Launch: Uneventful, got in maybe three steps before being pulled off in the lift.

The flight: Got concerned quickly about my clearance margin over the tree line west of launch. I turned right very soon after launch and experienced some turbulence. Felt I had my hands full maintaining the heading I needed for the shortest approach to the LZ. It became quickly apparent that using the leg harness for any duration at all is a real liability. It takes a fair effort applying enough forward pressure on the hang cage to keep the glider from slowing to a stall. This also gets in the way of actuating the rudders. By the time I got to the LZ my arms were exhausted and this was only a 400 ft hill. The photo shows me about halfway to the LZ. Notice the vertical body position this harness configuration puts me in. Great for takeoff but does not allow me to get into the cage.

Landing: This was the most maneuvering I have done setting up an approach. It required me to line up along a power line, crab along it and then drop into the field LZ. I felt in total control on approach and the flare was easy with only a couple steps to full stop in a 10mph SW breeze.

Conclusions: I need to get rid of the leg harness and start learning how to fly without it. I will need to go back to the coast where any mishaps will be done over sand.  At my current skill level the clearance over the trees right off launch is too marginal to be safe.  I should get to a point where I'm able to get to trim immediately after launch to maintain a safe margin.